For the first Market Monday in May, let’s take a big-picture look at the Tampa housing market by reviewing home sales in Hillsborough County from April 2018.

Hillsborough County

In April of 2018, 40 fewer single-family homes sold compared to April 2017. In 2018, 1,615 homes changed hands compared to 1,655 April 2017. So sales declined 4% from a year ago but rose 2% from March 2018 when 1,581 homes sold. The number of homes for sale plunged 21% from 8,572 in April of 2017 to 6,805 this April. That’s 1,762 fewer homes on the market than April a year and 138 more than in March 2018. Also, 2,456 new properties came onto the market in April of this year, 197 more than April 2017 when 2,259 new properties were listed for sale.

Housing Inventory, measured by Months Supply of Inventory, fell a whopping 40% compared to April 2017. Last April, the Hillsborough market had 3.3 months of supply, but this March the inventory had decreased to 2.0 months. But this was still up from March of 2018 when there were only 1.7 Months of Supply. The Average Days a Home Stayed on the Market stood where it was a year ago at 45 days.

Median Sold Price, which is the price half the homes sold for, rose 9% or $21,500 from $227,500 in April 2017 to $249,00 from April a year ago. The Median For Sale Price of homes jumped 10% or $26,000 from $262,900 to$288,900.

Bottom Line:

Homes continue to sell at a pace close to a year ago even though the number of homes for sale is down significantly. But sellers did list more homes for sale in April 2018 compared to April 2017. So hopefully this will help ease the lack of inventory. Buyers remain motivated despite a smaller selection of homes to choose from. This is good news for you if you want to sell your home in the next few months. The limited supply and high demand should keep prices at top dollar.

Now let’s look at some of the most helpful and interesting blog posts, articles, and infographics we’ve run across this week. Enjoy!

Hillsborough County:

Huge piles of mulch remain to be spread. The bocce ball court isn’t ready yet. And dozens of other little details remain for construction workers to complete in the final days before Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park opens to the public.

On Monday, Mayor Bob Buckhorn said the signature public works project of his two-term administration was 99 percent ready to go for its Mother’s Day weekend debut, when concerts are scheduled by the Florida Orchestra, the U.S. Navy Band and pop act Third Eye Blind, which the mayor referred to initially as “Third Blind Eye.”

Spokeswoman Ashley Bauman corrected him, and Buckhorn said that’s why he has “hipsters” working for him.

We recently shared that national home prices have increased by 6.7% year-over-year. Over that same time period, interest rates have remained historically low which has allowed many buyers to enter the market.

As a seller, you will likely be most concerned about ‘short-term price’ – where home values are headed over the next six months. As a buyer, however, you must not be concerned about price, but instead about the ‘long-term cost’ of the home.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae all project that mortgage interest rates will increase by this time next year. According to CoreLogic’s most recent Home Price Index Report, home prices will appreciate by 5.2% over the next 12 months.

What Does This Mean as a Buyer?

If home prices appreciate by 5.2% over the next twelve months as predicted by CoreLogic, here is a simple demonstration of the impact that an increase in interest rate would have on the mortgage payment of a home selling for approximately $250,000 today:

Bottom Line

If buying a home is in your plan for this year, doing it sooner rather than later could save you thousands of dollars over the terms of your loan.

Home values have risen dramatically over the last twelve months. In CoreLogic’s most recent Home Price Index Report, they revealed that national home prices have increased by 6.7% year-over-year.

CoreLogic broke down appreciation even further into four price ranges, giving us a more detailed view than if we had simply looked at the year-over-year increases in national median home price.

The chart below shows the four price ranges from the report, as well as each one’s year-over-year growth from February 2017 to February 2018 (the latest data available).

It is important to pay attention to how prices are changing in your local market. The location of your home is not the only factor that determines how much your home has appreciated over the course of the last year.

Lower-priced homes have appreciated at greater rates than homes at the upper ends of the spectrum due to demand from first-time home buyers and baby boomers looking to downsize.

Bottom Line

If you are planning to list your home for sale in today’s market, let’s get together to go over exactly what’s going on in your area and your price range.

Buy:

The share of homebuyers in the U.S. who are single women has been steadily increasing over the last several decades and is now at an all-time high.

“In the early 1980s, it was about 9 percent,” said Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist at Veritas Urbis Economics. “It’s about 19 percent now, so almost one-fifth of all homebuyers in the U.S. are single women, and that’s a significant jump.”

There are obvious factors contributing to the increase in single-women homeowners, including an increase women in the full-time workforce and incomes but women are also just staying single longer.

“Men and women, especially those that are under 35, are waiting longer to do adultlike things such as getting married and having children, but that hasn’t stopped them from buying homes,” McLaughlin said.

Despite that, the share of homebuyers in general who are less than 35-years-old is at an all-time low, falling from 52 percent in 1981 to 33.7 percent in 2017.

But the share of homebuyers made up of single-person households, men and women, has increased from 15.3 percent in 1981 to 21.2 percent in 2017.

The aging of America has also skewed homeownership demographics.

The share of U.S. homebuyers comprised of households more than 55-years-old has increased from 16.1 percent in 1981 to 27.8 percent today.

Sell:

April showers bring May flowers, and May flowers bring…. home sales? According to a new ATTOM Data Solutions analysis of 14.7 million home sales from 2011 to 2017, the best month to sell a home is May. This month reaps the biggest premiums above estimated market value, at 5.9% on average, compared to any other month.

The single best day of the year to sell a home, according to the analysis, is June 28, which sees an average seller premium of 9.1%. The other top days to sell a home are February 15, May 31, May 29 and June 21, with premiums ranging from 9% to 8.1%.

Below, a breakdown of the best months to sell a home, according to ATTOM Data Solutions:

2011 to 2017 Sales of Single Family Homes and Condos

Month

Number of Sales

Median Sales Price

Median AVM

Seller Premium

May

1,369,131

$194,900

$184,070

5.9%

June

1,489,911

$202,000

$191,000

5.8%

August

1,435,907

$200,000

$191,956

4.2%

July

1,420,780

$200,000

$192,717

3.8%

February

894,060

$172,500

$166,843

3.4%

April

1,242,434

$186,000

$179,910

3.4%

September

1,263,439

$195,000

$189,000

3.2%

March

1,186,024

$180,000

$174,630

3.1%

November

1,079,935

$191,900

$187,000

2.6%

January

916,374

$172,269

$168,375

2.3%

October

1,257,043

$192,000

$189,000

1.6%

December

1,174,540

$193,000

$190,000

1.6%

All Months

14,729,578

$190,000

$184,610

2.9%

Home Loans

May 3, 2018

After steadily rising in most of April, average mortgage rates dipped slightly over the past week.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate declined three basis points to 4.55 percent in this week’s survey. While mortgage rates have increased by one-half of a percentage point so far this year, it has not impacted home purchase demand, which continues to grow this spring. The observed buyer resiliency in the face of higher rates reflects the healthy economy and strong consumer confidence, which are important drivers of home sales activity.

It’s also good news that first-time buyers appear to be having more success so far this year – despite higher borrowing costs and home prices. Our data through April show that first-timers represent 46 percent of purchase loans, up from 43 percent over the same period a year ago.

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Team Bohannon Real Estate Experts

Keller Williams Tampa Properties
Tampa, Florida

(813) 979-4963

If you're looking for a trusted partner who exceeds expectations, reduces stress, fulfills promises, and is on top of all the details, consider Tampa's Top Real Estate Team: Doug, Annette and Dale Bohannon when buying or selling your home, call us today at 813-979-4963